Federal standards [Volume 1, Section 2.2.8.2 Voting variations,
subsections a.) through o.)] currently require voting equipment vendors
to report on the compatibility of their equipment with different ballot
types in use within the United States. Now, as the ranked-choice voting
system known as instant runoff voting (IRV) gathers growing support,
some counties and states are moving to require ballot type flexibility
in standards for new voting equipment. In California, for example,
Mendocino County, Alameda County and Santa Clara County all required
machine compatibility with instant runoff voting (IRV) in recent
request for proposals, and the state’s Help America Vote Act committee
strongly urged vendors to provide IRV-ready equipment. The inclusion of
such requirements is likely to grow. IRV is used in San Francisco’s
major elections and has been approved by two-to-one margins by voters
in Burlington (VT), Ferndale (MI) and Berkeley (CA). Louisiana and
Arkansas require IRV absentee ballots for most overseas voters in
elections that might go to runoff, and legislatures in Maine,
Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington are among those seriously
debating IRV. To meet the increasing demand for flexible voting
equipment and to remove uncertainty for election officials suddenly in
a position to implement a ranked-choice voting method, vendors must
consider the requirements of these electoral systems as they develop
and sell their equipment and software.

Summary of Ranked Choice Voting Systems

Instant runoff voting (IRV) ensures that winners in a single-seat election have majority support without the need for a second runoff election. Choice voting ensures
fair representation for both majority and minority voters in multi-seat
elections. Rather than voting for a single candidate, voters rank
candidates in order of choice. This allows tabulators to distribute
votes from eliminated candidates (with IRV) or elected candidates (with
choice voting) to remaining candidates.

Administration of ranked choice systems: Voters rank
candidates in order of choice, indicating their 1st, 2nd choice, 3rd
choice and so on. The voting equipment either prevents voters from
casting invalid votes (overvote, skipped ranking, listing the same
candidate more than once) or notifies voters of errors and allows for
their correction. The voting equipment stores ballot images of each
voter's rankings rather than sub-totals for each ballot position. The
output of the voting equipment is a data file containing anonymous
records of each voter's 1st choice, 2nd and so on.

Summary of Cumulative Voting Systems

Voters have as many votes as there are seats to be filled but they can distribute these votes however they want, giving one vote each to several candidates, or all votes to a single candidate.

Administration of cumulative voting elections: The ballot
must allow voters to cast a number of votes up to the number of seats
and to give one or more votes to one or more candidates. The voting
equipment must either prevent voters from casting an invalid vote
(overvote) or notify voters of errors, allowing voters to correct them.
It must record the total number of votes received by each candidate.

In Detroit, there have been three mayors in the past two years and the current one has come under scrutiny. Perhaps a system like instant runoff voting will help bring political stability to motor city.